Et justice pour... bowling?

Okay, yeah, I grew up in Jersey -- which means that going to visit my folks involves catching a bus out of the ever-so-lovely Port Authority. Those of you familiar with this great wonder of architectural ugliness and terrible lighting which serves as NYC's main bus station (and also, apparently, a temporary residence for about 10% of the city's weirdoes at any given moment) are also probably familiar with the bowling alley on the second floor. Those of you who aren't have probably been to a dirty bus station or a dirty bowling alley at least once in your life, and can still understand why it's unfortunate that the bus I usually take leaves from a gate right next to it. I'm used to running past it, eyes averted in snobbish horror, because I'm an asshole. Which is what I was doing yesterday, when I stopped dead in my tracks. Because the song emanating from the entrance, along with a faint stench of feet and beer, was Justice's D.A.N.C.E.


I don't think I can think of a better barometer of what is not cool than a bowling alley. In a bus station. Ed Banger's poster child, the ultimate in disaffected French hipster elite, is now in the same genre of music as EEEVERYBODY DAAANCE NOW; what was, eighteen months ago, the hottest dance track at the coolest of the cool kid parties has devolved into a soundtrack for the garishly carpeted space where drunks from Jersey kill an hour before taking public trans back to the 'burbs. Was the Port Authority taken over by slightly out-of-touch hipsters, or does the zeitgeist cycle move so quickly these days that bands go from most-blogged-about-electro-outfit-ever to bowling alley background noise in less than a year? (Note that D.A.N.C.E. was only officially released in May 2007.) What the hell is going on?

Google VP of Engineering joins EMI as President of digital

I dismissed yesterday's "big news" that a CIO at Google had been hired as a president at (my former employer) EMI as about as likely to be true as Techcrunch suing Facebook and Gmail warping the space-time continuum -- but apparently, both the LA Times and a press release from EMI confirm that it's true. It's definitely a gutsy move, and a big symbolic step in the right direction for a company that recently fired half its staff worldwide due to, well, more or less, the implications of the internet, but how much change can one high-ranking guy actually enact? What? Marrying music and technology? Getting people who understand technology and the internet to work in music? It's a great idea, EMI -- only thing is, you're about a decade too late.

Need something to do tonight?

Check out Low Level Flight at Arlene's Grocery TONIGHT if you're in NYC!

Neon Neon's "Stainless Style"

Neon Neon -- I Lust U (featuring Cate Le Bon)

Neon Neon, the collaboration between Boom Bip (who I've had a soft spot for ever since he released that amazing track with folk favourite Nina Nastasia) and Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals), have finally released their first album Stainless Style. You might remember Boom Bip's Neon Neon "Stainless Style" mixtape from November, which featured a few tracks from the album, as well as Prince, Janet Jackson, Neil Young, and that crazy catchy funereal Goblin track which you probably know better from Justice's "Phantom" (which, unlike "D.A.N.C.E.", doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out every time I hear it.) The album, after a long delay, came out this tuesday on Lex Records, and is basically concept album about... John DeLorean (yeah, that's right, DeLorean, as in the car in Back to the Future. Gary, are you reading this?)

Pitchfork described Stainless as a culmination of recent hipster zeitgeist (actually... pretty accurate) and my friend John brushed it off as a weaker Sebastién Tellier ripping off Kavinsky(whose alter ego died in a car crash in 1986 and apparently is making music from beyond the grave -- check out the video for Testarossa Autodrive, which is so cool it hurts, if you haven't seen it.) But, er, it's a really well done culmination of hipster zeitgeist, and I mean, I really like Sebastién Tellier, and Kavinsky, and also The Knife and Ladytron, which "I Lust U" in particular also recalls -- though Boom Bip's other influences, from hip hop to mechanical car clinking noises, plus a heavy dose of 80's pop and Italo disco, surface throughout the album. And, uh, I kind of can't stop listening to the album.

Download an older mix of "I Lust U" from XLR8R or stream the whole album on imeem. Tracks to note besides "I Lust You": "Trick for Treat", which features Spank Rock and Sean Tillman, the synthy "Belfast," and the "Neon Theme," which just sounds like a badass 80's movie soundtrack.

dressed in the dark?

In fourth grade someone's zitty older brother weeded the banks of the polluted stream next to my school and called it a nature trail, and my scribbles with Crayola magic markers won the competition to make a logo for the trail. The school got teeshirts with the logo printed, and just around the time when I would have actually started wearing it, my mother threw it away. This isn't a good story, but it's sort of almost relevant to the fact that Hot Chip and Threadless have teamed up for a Made in the Dark teeshirt competition. Basically, design a teeshirt around the theme of "made in the dark" (the name of their latest album), and the winners can get all kinds o' cool sheeit, like Hot Chip's full discography, a $500 Threadless gift card,  or a MicroKorg keyboard, not to mention getting to snicker at some douchebag on the L train wearing the shirt you designed. Maybe the winning design will be almost as cool as the Packanack Elementary Nature Trail teeshirt whose loss I'm still bemoaning.

In other news, as if you didn't know, Frontside favourites Chromeo open for Justice at the most ambitiously booked show of 2008 tonight at MSG -- oh, wait, I mean the WaMu Theatre, while most of the music-relevant world is waiting in security lines at LaGuardia for their flights to Austin for SXSW.  And Myspace FINALLY gets it together and is talking about launching a music service, possibly by the end of this year -- and actually with the support of EMI, Warner, and Sony BMG. (More on that at Daily Swarm).

Beatles to be available on iTunes; REM to be available on iLike

I don't care too much for money 'cause money won't buy me love -- but now it'll get me Abbey Road on my computer. Finally, The Beatles are going to be available on iTunes -- and it only cost Apple four hundred million dollars.

Meanwhile, R.E.M. are planning to pre-release their album Accelerate exclusively on iLike one week before its official release on April 1. iLike has been one of the fastest-growing music sites of late and is pretty much the single thing holding Facebook's attempt to encroach on Myspace's hold over music social networking -- seriously, if this were a band posting an album for streaming on Myspace before the release date, it would hardly be news-worthy. A few months ago, though, iLike was another glitchy Last.FM rip off which was awkwardly linked up with garageband.com, but not so anymore -- and this certainly gives the site a lot more cred. Says REM lead singer Michael Stipe: "We wanted to do something super fast and superreal." Read the whole story at the Wired blog.

what i'm listening to lately 1.0

Manchester's Working For a Nuclear Free City played their first shows ever in NYC this week. I tagged along to one of them as a friend's +1 because of the "free" thing, you know, but ended up actually... really digging the band and sort of can't stop listening to them since.


Working For a Nuclear Free City -- Rocket

WFaNFC play layered guitar-driven synth-y dream pop (?) that's somehow both shoegazey and dancey and incorporates influences from more weird shit than I can comprehend. Mysteriously, most of their songs seem to work as the soundtrack to the entirety of my Friday night, from the getting-ready-drinking-vodka-red-bull part, to the dark-bar-bright-lights-dancing part, to the mopey subway ride home alone, to the part where i drink half a Brita filter of water and lay on my floor with my huge DJ headphones staring up at the ceiling which is still kind of spinning while bemoaning my existence but secretly being pretty content about how awesome my headphones are and how awesome whatever I'm listening to sounds right then (you do it too, shut up.) (Also, for those of you that know the weird crap I listen to, Pitchfork gave them a 7.8/10, so it's not like I'm alone in loving their sound, either.)

If you missed WFaNFC at Music Hall of Williamsburg yesterday, they're playing a handful of showcases at SXSW, so try to catch them there. Or just check them out (and stream a lot more of their songs) at Myspace.